‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ & ‘The Avengers’ Crossover in the Works

Disney and Marvel Studios took a big risk with not only developing a major blockbuster release based on their relatively obscure property Guardians of the Galaxy, but tapping indie auteur James Gunn (Super) as writer-director. As this weekend’s box office numbers prove, the gamble has paid off, with the overall positive fan and critical reception of Guardians opening up all kinds of possibilities for Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.

Given the carefully strategized, interconnected nature of the Marvel movies so far, fans have speculated on how long it would take for the Guardians to cross paths with The Avengers. Such a crossover has always been a possibility, considering that we learned long ago that Marvel’s big bad Thanos would show up in GoTG, and Gunn himself voiced his desire to see his entry into the Marvel canon “grow into other things.”

There has been no official, studio-sanctioned announcements about any such event, but with Guardians poised to maybe overtake April’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s opening weekend take, the film’s director and stars spoke with Yahoo! UK(courtesy of /Film) about the idea.

Just about every actor wants to see the Guardians eventually teaming up (or going eyeball-to-eyeball) with The Avengers. You can watch the full video above, but James Gunn is closest to the Marvel brain trust and said the following:

We talked about all sorts of possibilities [for a crossover] and I kind of know what the basic plan is. That could or could not include a couple of Avengers and a couple of Guardians meeting up, or all of the Avengers and all of the Guardians. But, we do inhabit the same universe and they’re pretty big personalities that are likely to, at some point or another, run into each other.

Star Vin Diesel, who voices sentient tree Groot, also believes such a crossover is inevitable, saying:

I think there’s going to be huge fans of the Guardians and there are huge fans of the Avengers and I think the discussion has already been had. I think the audience may demand something like that.

Karen Gillan (Nebula) responded to the idea with “Why not?” and Zoe Saldana (Gamora) thinks the Guardians might actually be more than a match for the Avengers, but there is one (sort of) dissenter in the form of Star-Lord himself, Chris Pratt, who said:

If you go from five characters and you add another five characters, that’s ten characters. That can be very difficult. That being said, Marvel knows their stuff. Knows their business. And I see this, rather than taking the worlds that already exist and putting them together, this opens up doors into brand new worlds. We take characters we didn’t even know existed in the four corners of the universe and we see their stories.

Or will “a couple of Avengers” actually show up in GoTG 2? In the aftermath of the 2012 film The Avengers, the individual Phase 2 sequels have not included any other team members outside of a couple of clever little cameos. It’s conceivable that Marvel will begin to change up their formula as they expand the universe across the galaxy and work on establishing other titles beyond the main Avengers lineup.

What do you think, Screen Ranters? Should the Avengers and the Guardians be featured together on the big-screen? If so, when?

Guardians of the Galaxy is currently in theaters. TheAvengers: Age of Ultron opens on May 1st, 2015, Ant-Man on July 17th, 2015, Captain America 3 on May 6th, 2016, unannounced films on July 8th, 2016 and May 5th, 2017, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on July 28th, 2017, and unannounced movies on November 3rd, 2017, July 6th, 2018, November 2nd, 2018, and May 3rd, 2019.